It's somewhat exhausting to think about everything I need to do this summer. But maybe laying it out, here in a public space, will help me get all the to-dos out of my head, where they've been swirling around.

Research

1. Book proposal: get it done, send it out.

2. Maybe an article manuscript in response to a CFP I saw. If not that, then definitely a good draft of a Program Profile for Composition Forum, something my department chair has encouraged me to write.

3. Review a manuscript for a journal.

4. Review a book.

Teaching

1. Prepare for first-year writing course I'm teaching in the fall. We are in the planning stages of making some possible changes to the first-year writing curriculum here, and some of us will be class-testing new books this fall. I'm class-testing They Say, I Say with a 102 class.

2. Continue to read and respond to chapters by the authors of the two dissertations and one master's thesis I'm directing.

Home Improvement

1. Clean out dining room closets. Yes, it's wacky to have closets in the dining room, but you get used to it.

2. Acquire and/or create, frame, and hang up some good art for our walls.

3. Clean out/organize closet in guest bedroom.

Miscellaneous

1. Take one-day pediatric CPR/first aid class.

2. Update CV.

3. Read at least two novels. I'm thinking one of these will be by Philip K. Dick.

Q.E.D.

Courtesy of my mom, who saves everything, I found this article in a 1989 newspaper. It was with a box of scarves; my mom had saved an article about different ways to tie scarves and this was underneath it.

I'm mainly interested in this article as a historical document chronicling the "literacy crisis." Note that this article predates the WWW and all manner of other distractions. One could also use it to argue for having students write about topics from their personal lives. Hopefully you can click the image and be able to read the text on the size-large image, but if not, click "original" for bigger text.

Best year ever.

I have to believe experiences like the following will make me a better teacher.

Clancy: Henry, say Ma-Ma. Ma-Ma.

Henry: Da-Da.

Clancy: Henry, say Ma-Ma. Ma-Ma.

Henry: Da-Da.

Clancy: Henry, say Ma-Ma.

Henry: Pppbbbtt (sputters)

Clancy: Henry, say Ma-Ma.

Henry: Ah-Ya-Ya.

I am at my wits' end with NeoOffice (the Mac version of OpenOffice). So I have this document, about 34 pages long, and I want to have one section of front matter -- title page, copyright statement, table of contents -- that has lowercase Roman numerals but no page number on the title page. Then for the rest of the document, I want regular Arabic numerals beginning with 1.

I hate to say it, but in Microsoft Word, this would take two seconds. I really miss the page numbering options in Word, especially the "continue from previous section" box you can check. I have been doing EVERYTHING it says to do here and here, but it HAS NOT WORKED.

Unfortunately, if I want to get this document out the door, I'm going to have to get on my old computer that has Word and make the changes there. Just this crap with page numbers has set me back literally days.

Henry's been practicing standing with no hands for a little while now, but I was able to get a picture this morning: